Honor Council Selects Student Membership

Harvard College is one step closer to implementing its first-ever honor code after publishing Thursday the names of 26 undergraduates who will serve in official roles created as part of the College’s revised procedures for adjudicating alleged violations of academic integrity.

Twelve undergraduates will sit on the Honor Council, which will hear cases of alleged academic integrity violations, and 14 will serve as “academic integrity fellows” and will provide advising to students accused of breaching the honor code. The 26 students were named to their positions for the 2015-2016 academic year.

Of the 12 undergraduates on the Honor Council, seven are currently sophomores, three are freshmen, and two are juniors. Two students—Jonathan G. Jeffrey ’16 and  Nathaniel Bernstein ’17—are also members of the Academic Integrity Committee, which drafted the honor code.

In the coming months, the Honor Council will meet weekly to receive training from faculty and study mock cases as members prepare to adjudicate cases next semester, Interim Secretary of the Administrative Board Brett Flehinger said in late January.

Meg G. Panetta ’17, a member of the Honor Council, said that she had received a syllabus detailing the training and that students on the Council convened in an introductory meeting on Monday.

The Council will also comprise 12 faculty, staff, and graduate student members whom Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana will select. Khurana wrote in an email that he is “excited about the progress that the Honor Council is making” and is still finalizing appointments of those 12 non-undergraduate members.

Flehinger wrote in an emailed statement that he was grateful for the student membership of the Council and believes that the Honor Council “will shape the academic culture here at Harvard for years to come.”

Undergraduates on the Council likewise praised the honor code and the function they say it will play in promoting a culture of academic integrity.

“I think we can do something to contribute to academic integrity here and I'm looking forward to doing that,” Panetta said.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is expected to vote on the affirmation of integrity statement—a key component of the honor code—in April. In a meeting earlier this month, Faculty heard the current proposal of the statement, which would require that students affirm their awareness of the honor code before each semester, during final exams, and on final papers and projects.

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.